2025-12-13 16:34:55
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174
~LaurentI opened my eyes to darkness.The darkness was thick, almost liquid, pressing against my skin. My chest heaved, lungs gulping air I didn’t know was there. The ground beneath me felt uneven, soft in some places, hard in others, like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.I sighed. I guess I was foolish for thinking those reflections wanted to help me.I pushed myself up, wincing as my muscles screamed. Nothing broken, nothing missing, but every movement carried the memory of the fall.The walls… if they could be called that… rose from shadow. Stone, polished black, absorbing what little light I had. I took a cautious step forward. Then another. The space stretched on endlessly, corridors curling in directions that made no sense.Nothing moved.Nothing breathed.Nothing waited—except me.I tried calling out. My voice was swallowed by the darkness. Even my system hummed faintly in my chest, a quiet heartbeat I could barely feel. No guidance. No notifications. Just silence.I m
173
~Laurent The darkness didn’t feel empty. It felt arranged. Stone stretched ahead of me in clean, deliberate lines. No dust. No debris. The Maze wasn’t decaying here. It was intact. Preserved. Like this section mattered more than the rest. My footsteps echoed once. Then twice. Then not at all. The sound died mid-step, swallowed by the walls. I stopped walking. The silence adjusted around me, like it had been waiting for me to notice it. No system response. No hum beneath my skin. Nothing guiding me. For the first time in a long while, I wasn’t being acknowledged by anything. I exhaled slowly. Fine. If the Maze wanted to play quiet, I could do quiet. I moved again. The corridor widened gradually, not enough to feel open, just enough to feel intentional. The walls smoothed out, runes thinning until they vanished completely. Then the stone ahead of me… shifted. Not like before. No grinding. No resistance. It simply parted. The space beyond w
171
~Laurent We stepped out of the ruined chamber, the corrupted mana still clinging to the walls like residue from a nightmare that hadn’t fully dissipated. I barely made it three steps into the camp we'd set up before a familiar voice groaned from behind a collapsed pillar. “Are you two planning to leave me here to die or what?” Kendrix. Obviously. He had woken up. I was hoping we could go and get back without waking him but I guess that wasn't possible. He pushed himself upright with a wince so sharp it almost folded him back in half. Blood stained the side of his shirt, dried into a deep brown patch. His hair was a mess. His breathing uneven. But his expression? Bored. Deeply, profoundly bored.Calista blinked. “Aren't you supposed to be resting?" He gave her a flat stare. “You're not even supposed to be here.” He limped toward us, one hand pressed to his ribs like he was holding himself together through stubbornness alone. "So where are we going next from here?" "We are go
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~Laurent We stepped out of the ruined chamber, the corrupted mana still clinging to the walls like residue from a nightmare that hadn’t fully dissipated. I barely made it three steps into the camp we'd set up before a familiar voice groaned from behind a collapsed pillar. “Are you two planning to leave me here to die or what?” Kendrix. Obviously. He had woken up. I was hoping we could go and get back without waking him but I guess that wasn't possible. He pushed himself upright with a wince so sharp it almost folded him back in half. Blood stained the side of his shirt, dried into a deep brown patch. His hair was a mess. His breathing uneven. But his expression? Bored. Deeply, profoundly bored.Calista blinked. “Aren't you supposed to be resting?" He gave her a flat stare. “You're not even supposed to be here.” He limped toward us, one hand pressed to his ribs like he was holding himself together through stubbornness alone. "So where are we going next from here?" "We are go
170
~LaurentThe clone stared at me with those hollow, imitation eyes. Nothing behind them. Nothing remotely close to the real Vyrath’s malice. Just a sketch of a nightmare wearing a stolen face.Still, it lunged.Pathetic. Predictable.It came at me with a sweeping strike, claws outstretched, moving fast enough that any ordinary fighter would have flinched.I didn’t.I simply tilted my head.The claws missed me by several inches, slicing empty air.The clone staggered, its momentum carrying it forward. It tried to recover, digging its hands into the ground like an animal trying to steady itself. Its breath was ragged—if it could even be called breathing. Its mana was flickering, unstable. Whoever summoned it barely knew what they were doing.It swiped again.And again.Every attack like a blurred line of motion… yet somehow painfully slow to me. I shifted my weight, letting the strikes sneak by my arm, my shoulder, my cheek. The air brushed past my skin but nothing else.A sputtering gro
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~Laurent The hum of the ritual thrummed in my ears, a low, insistent vibration that made my teeth ache. Calista was stiff, frozen, her limbs locked by a spell I didn't recognize. They picked the wrong person to mess with. I stepped forward. Slowly. Deliberately. The dust on the floor shifted beneath my boots. My shadow stretched long, flickering across the runes carved into the stone. “The first hand that reaches for her dies." The word wasn’t loud. I didn’t need it to be. It carried weight. Authority. Presence. The chanting faltered. A flicker of light—torchlight or magic, I couldn’t tell—hit me. They saw me. Recognition hit them like a hammer. I was Laurent Draven. The one who had killed the Monster Monarch. The boy who single handedly killed a whole army of monsters. They had every reason to be scared. Calista’s spell broke. Her body went slack, then wobbled as she took a staggered step forward. The Arcanists’ eyes widened. Whispers ran through them, sharp and frighte
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